


Lost Time

by DreamingStarkly



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Shameless Shmoop, Spoilers for episode 29: Subway, because hey travelling through universes and time/space continuums can be disturbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-16
Updated: 2013-08-16
Packaged: 2017-12-23 15:27:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/928113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingStarkly/pseuds/DreamingStarkly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Cecil returns from the subway, Carlos panics and thinks everything has changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Time

Carlos had not moved from his work station for a good ten minutes. The rhythmic buzzing of flies near a hot mic had started emanating from the small radio in the corner of the lab.

When did anything his boyf—romantic inter—casual dating partner who is mildly obsessive say on his radio show actually start trickling through as more than background noise?

Years, he had said.

He was gone for years.

The weather had ended (and he really _is_ going native if he’s nonsensically replacing words) and moments later dread—not the kind that was delivered to him by the feelings delivery service that Cecil had just yammered on about—slid down his throat and into his stomach like a panic-laced cocktail.

The truly strange part about this whole thing was that Carlos was not _just_ worried about Cecil’s DNA. The cell samples he had gathered from those who had returned from the subway had indicated a disturbing loss of basic proteins. By all accounts, they shouldn’t be alive. They seemed to be sustained by something else, something he couldn’t see under a microscope.

But that’s not the sole reason why he was frozen in place, his heart beating erratically in his ears as Cecil signed off for the night. Nope. Carlos the scientist was terrified of the possibility that maybe, in the years (perhaps decades) of traveling through a potential wormhole created by frighteningly advanced _Pariplaneta Americana_ …Cecil was no longer interested in having brunch tomorrow.

It wasn’t a large intellectual jump. Cecil—at least on his side—had not seen, spoken, or perhaps even thought of Carlos in years. His experience in the subway probably trumped any mental retention of the past real year. Why would a brunch date with a two-bit scientist (who, frankly, can barely do his job in this town) be something Cecil would want to return to after all that?

Before he could stop himself, Carlos found his hand holding his iPhone 4S and his thumb was hovering over Cecil’s name.

 _Pull yourself together,_ the lone remaining sensible voice in his head snapped.

It wasn’t like it was a big deal. Worse things have happened to drastically change Night Vale and its citizens. Even after the doppleganger sandstorm, Cecil was the same old chatty radio host he’d always been. He was probably worrying over nothing.

His thumb stayed where it was.

What if, head stuffed full with what he had seen, Cecil had forgot about brunch? It was probably wise to drop a message. Just to, y’know, make sure he remembered. Right?

After another moment’s deliberation, Carlos realized he was a hopeless idiot and tossed the phone back down onto the table with a sharp _clack_.

That very second, however, the phone began to ring.

The dread that had settled somewhere around his upper ribs seemed to constrict around his organs. Cecil’s name and his picture (“Documentation. For research” he had blurted, capturing the bright pink horse that had wandered into Big Rico’s as well as Cecil’s soft, delighted eyes) shone from the phone’s screen and he cursed himself.

 _He’s going to cancel, he’s going to cancel, he’s going to cancel,_ his mind screeched in pain, as if to save himself prematurely from the message that was sure to come.

“Hello?” Carlos answered, as if he didn’t know who was on the other line.

“ _Carlos?_ ”

“Oh. Hey Cecil.”

“ _This…this is about brunch tomorrow. I was hoping you would be okay with a change of plans_.”

Shit. Here it comes. “Oh?” Carlos murmured, the dread slowly coalescing into something like resolved sadness.

“ _I was wondering if I could see you tonight_.”

Carlos blinked.

“What?”

“ _It’s, never mind. You probably have very important science things to do tonight. I wouldn’t want to interrupt. You know. Science. It’s very good time of year for it. I’ll talk all about it in my show tomorrow. I should let you go back. To work. And science. Sorry._ ” Cecil, almost always composed Cecil, was tumbling over his words and that’s either a very good sign or a very, very bad one.

“No!” Carlos refuted, a little too quickly. “No, I can see you tonight.”

Cecil’s resonant and peppy answer came—not out of his phone—but from directly behind Carlos. “Great! I’m already here!”

The startled and strangled sound that came out of Carlos’s mouth was embarrassing. His fellow scientists stared for a moment, and then went back to work.

“Cecil,” Carlos squeaked before maintaining his composure. Spinning around and nearly having a heart attack gave him a bit of a head rush.

“Sorry,” Cecil apologized sheepishly. “I probably should have given you more of a heads up that I was coming over right after the show. But I didn’t think about it until I was in the parking lot.”

“It’s, uh. It’s fine. Do you want to talk here, or…?”

“Can we take a walk?” Cecil suggested.

The night was quiet, save for the faint clicking of insects. Carlos, hands shoved deep into his lab coat pockets, stepped lightly as they headed down the sidewalk, making sure not to squish any of the roaches that crossed his path. Cecil, like the town, was quieter than usual. It was funny; Cecil mirrored Night Vale in a lot of ways. Carlos’s heart was still hammering in his chest, and he knew he had to bring the subject up at some point. He took a deep breath and exhaled.

“So. Years, huh?” He glanced sideways.

Cecil looked like he was staring off into a far, far away world. He probably was.

“That’s what it felt like,” Cecil agreed. “Oh, did you want to take sample of my DNA or something?”

“Um,” Carlos had to pause at that. “No, that’s okay. I have enough from other citizens. Maybe later. What…what happened?”

“Yes,” Cecil mused, his head slightly bowed as they strolled. “It is odd, and almost like a dream now. I never thought I would experience such terror and amazement and existential completeness. I didn’t want to leave. For a long time, I just wanted to know more.”

“And then it stopped?” Carlos guessed. That must be the only reason why he returned. The wormhole, or whatever it was, didn’t want to give all its secrets. And now Cecil was left topside and was probably feeling empty and lost without that vast expansion of time and space.

Cecil shook his head. “No. The subway was happy to give me more, to show me all the materials of the universe. But, in the end, I chose to come back. All of us who returned had the choice. It might take others longer, perhaps decades or centuries, but I’m not sure I want to see how that turns out. I’m feeling quite off from the quantum disparity as it is. It’s a little like indigestion, actually. Or maybe that was lunch...”

“Wait,” Carlos protested, reaching out and taking Cecil by the elbow. They both stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “Why would you choose to come back?”  

Cecil studied Carlos. It was not at all like the kind of studying Carlos does when he’s back at the lab—dispassionate and dissecting. This kind of studying was the kind an art curator does when she’s surveying the first piece of art that made her soul soar with joy and wonder.

“Oh, Carlos,” Cecil finally said, his smile warm and the affection in his eyes deep as he took Carlos’s hand. “The subway may contain the universe and all its secrets, but Night Vale is my home. I can’t leave it. It’s in my contract.”

Carlos nodded slowly. It wasn’t quite an answer, but most of Cecil’s answers weren’t of the satisfying category.

“So…why meet me tonight when we were already going to have brunch tomorrow?” The smile dropped slightly, and Cecil looked away. Carlos suddenly didn’t want to hear the answer because he was afraid it might be what he had been dreading anyway.

“It had been years, Carlos.” His voice, which had just before been soothing and steady, cracked. His hand squeezed Carlos’s tightly. “Years.”

Carlos would have said he was used to Cecil’s wildly swinging emotional states by now, but this was a tad out of his league. “I…what?”

Cecil looked up at him with wide, teary eyes.

“I haven’t seen you in what feels like years,” Cecil rasped, almost to himself. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to pull you away from your work, I just had to…I’m sorry.” Cecil stepped away. However, he couldn’t seem to bring himself to let go of Carlos’s hand and they were left literally at arms-length away from each other.

“Hey.” Carlos moved forward and tentatively touched Cecil’s cheek to get him to look back. “Hey, it’s okay.” Shit, he probably should have guessed that Cecil’s experience probably would have some sort of drawback. This is why he’s a scientist and not a psychologist.

Cecil chuckled mirthlessly. “I thought I was doing well enough to seem okay. I guess I wasn’t.”

“I’m happy you called me. Really. I don’t blame you at all for not taking it completely in stride. It’s been a long day,” Carlos commented.

Cecil stared at him, and a hysterical giggle escaped his mouth. Carlos grinned weakly. 

“C’mon,” he said, his thumb passing softly over the back of the radio host’s hand. “I don’t know what they feed you in the subway, but I’m starving. Let’s say you and I have brunch for dinner.”

McDonalds was right around the corner. One of the consistently awesome features of surreal Night Vale staples was that this McDonalds served breakfast 24/7, so brunch—while saturated with calories and horrible excess oils—was cheap and delicious.

They probably would have spent less time there, of course, if Cecil didn’t stop kissing him after every other bite of their hamburgers and pancakes. Not that Carlos minded, exactly. In fact, it loosened the dread that Cecil had lost interest in him and replaced it with the old familiar warmth that usually accompanied Cecil's enthusiastic exhaultions about his hair.

“Making up for lost time?” Carlos finally teased after one particularly syrupy exchange.

Cecil’s eyes twinkled. “Something like that.”


End file.
